Well-known as a poet, cultural
critic, and novelist, William Gilmore Simms’s undertaking of an edited volume
of Shakespearean apocrypha seems, at first, odd and atypical. Yet, throughout his long career, Simms
displayed a real interest in the theatre, attempting, often unsuccessfully, to
write and stage plays. His
correspondence also shows a recurring concern with the opinions and evaluations
of the great Shakespearean actor Edwin Forrest, for whom Simms wrote several
dramas, none of which were ever staged.[1] Taking into account the author’s deep and
abiding interest ...

Published
in 1846 by John Russell in Charleston, SC, Areytos
was also titled Songs of the South, because
all the poems dealt with subject matter related to the southern United States. Many had been published previously in various
periodicals.[1]
Simms issued this collection on the heels of his Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fancies. A Collection of Sonnets.[2] Thinking of himself primarily as a poet and
wanting to secure his place as one of America’s best, he followed the
publications of Grouped Thoughts
(1845) and Areytos (1846) with five
other volumes of poetry, all published ...

As Good as a Comedy and Paddy McGann are two short novels that
reveal Simms’s talents as a comedic writer. While other works, like Border
Beagles, contain humorous sections or characters, these two works stand out
as sustained comedic successes. In these, Simms shows an understanding of
and skill at utilizing the tropes of frontier humor, popularized by the likes
of A.B. Longstreet’s Georgia Scenes, as well as a use of humor as
social commentary that foreshadowed the work of Twain. While each was
published previously, they were published together in one volume in 1972, ...

As Good as a Comedy and Paddy McGann are two short novels that
reveal Simms’s talents as a comedic writer. While other works, like Border
Beagles, contain humorous sections or characters, these two works stand out
as sustained comedic successes. In these, Simms shows an understanding of
and skill at utilizing the tropes of frontier humor, popularized by the likes
of A.B. Longstreet’s Georgia Scenes, as well as a use of humor as
social commentary that foreshadowed the work of Twain. While each was
published previously, they were published together in one volume in 1972, ...

Though the first edition of Atalantis.
A Story of the Sea (1832) was well received by reviewers both North
and South, it had only one printing. The
limited print run of just 500 copies meant that relatively few readers could
enjoy the many “uncommonly strong and vigorous passages” that comprised William
Gilmore Simms’s fanciful tale.[1] Simms was early convinced that a larger
readership existed and that Atalantis offered
him an opportunity to increase his reputation in both the Northern states and
Europe. In 1837 he wrote to James
Lawson, one of his best friends ...

William
Gilmore Simms published Atalantis. A Story of the Sea: In Three Parts in the
fall of 1832. While Simms’s name does
not appear anywhere on or in the text, it is unlikely that he sought any type
of anonymity in its publication. Within
weeks of its appearing in print a reviewer in the Charleston Courier announced, “It is attributed to the pen of our
fellow-townsman, William Gilmore Simms, Esq.…”[1] Even without such prompting anyone familiar
with Simms’s work would have quickly recognized his authorship, because the
opening sonnet was one that he had previously ...

Early in the
morning of 7 November 1825, in the town of Frankfort, KY, a young lawyer named
Jereboam O. Beauchamp crept to the house of the state attorney general, Solomon
P. Sharp, and stabbed him to death. The
murder was orchestrated to avenge the honor of Anna Cook[1],
Beauchamp’s wife, who as a single woman had been seduced, impregnated, and
abandoned by Sharp[2]. The event was a national sensation
immediately following its discovery and Beauchamp’s capture days later. Following Cook and Beauchamp’s failed joint
suicide attempt and the latter’s subsequent execution, ...

Early in the
morning of 7 November 1825, in the town of Frankfort, KY, a young lawyer named
Jereboam O. Beauchamp crept to the house of the state attorney general, Solomon
P. Sharp, and stabbed him to death. The
murder was orchestrated to avenge the honor of Anna Cook[1],
Beauchamp’s wife, who as a single woman had been seduced, impregnated, and
abandoned by Sharp[2]. The event was a national sensation
immediately following its discovery and Beauchamp’s capture days later. Following Cook and Beauchamp’s failed joint
suicide attempt and the latter’s subsequent execution, ...

Throughout Simms’s career, one of his paramount concerns was
the connection between art and history, and the role of the literary artist in conveying
history. While readers see Simms
exploring these connections in his Revolutionary Romances, other scattered
works of fiction, and the essays in Views
and Reviews, one of the writer’s most intriguing presentations of the ability
of art to interpret history is in the genre-mixing Benedict Arnold: The Traitor. A Drama, in an Essay. Critic Miriam J. Shillingsburg regards Benedict Arnold as worthy of
commendation for its “thoughtful ...

Biographical Sketch from the Life of M.C.M. Hammond is a brief
memorial pamphlet commemorating the life and service of Marcus Claudius
Marcellus Hammond, the middle brother of the Hammond family with whom Simms was
so closely connected. Collected on the
occasion of Hammond’s 23 January 1876 death, this volume consists of three
distinct parts. The first two of these
parts are biographical sketches of Hammond, one by Simms, and one by Brigadier
General Benjamin Alvord, who served with Hammond in the Mexican-American War. The
third section of the work is a brief memorial ...

In The Major Fiction of William Gilmore Simms,
Mary Ann Wimsatt argues that Border Beagles, the sequel to the
scandalous Richard Hurdis, shows Simms as continuing to explore the
contentious relationship between the older, civilized tidewater south and the
wild trans-mountain frontier.[1]
While thus continuing a theme begun with Guy Rivers and Richard
Hurdis, Border Beagles saw Simms decidedly scaling back
the violence found in those two books, especially the latter. Here, the
author’s presentation of the chaos and dangers of the frontier is tempered by
humor, with ...

In The Major Fiction of William Gilmore Simms,
Mary Ann Wimsatt argues that Border Beagles, the sequel to the
scandalous Richard Hurdis, shows Simms as continuing to explore the
contentious relationship between the older, civilized tidewater south and the
wild trans-mountain frontier.[1]
While thus continuing a theme begun with Guy Rivers and Richard
Hurdis, Border Beagles saw Simms decidedly scaling back
the violence found in those two books, especially the latter. Here, the
author’s presentation of the chaos and dangers of the frontier is tempered by
humor, with ...

Carl Werner was published in December 1838 by George Adlard of New
York.[1] In the author’s advertisement, Simms classified
the collected stories as “moral imaginative” tales, a form of allegory
illuminating the “strifes between the rival moral principles of good and evil.”
Such stories, according to John C. Guilds,
may often exploit supernatural elements, although it is not necessary. Simms attributed the origin of the title
story to “an ancient monkish legend,” as he set “Carl Werner” in the deepest parts
of the German forest where the narrator and his friend ...

A gothic tale of ghosts, infidelity,
murder, and love, Castle Dismal follows
the protagonist Ned Clifton, a “veteran bachelor” who fears the bonds of
marriage, in his holiday visit to the home of married friends. Set during the Christmas season in South Carolina,
Simms’s story illustrates the southern custom of bringing together family
around a table to feast; and while Clifton eventually marries Elizabeth
Singleton—freeing him from the “melancholy dependencies of bachelorism”—Simms
subverts naïve nineteenth-century notions of marriage and domesticity.[1] Marked ...

Early in the
morning of 7 November 1825, in the town of Frankfort, KY, a young lawyer named
Jereboam O. Beauchamp crept to the house of the state attorney general, Solomon
P. Sharp, and stabbed him to death. The
murder was orchestrated to avenge the honor of Anna Cook[1],
Beauchamp’s wife, who as a single woman had been seduced, impregnated, and
abandoned by Sharp[2]. The event was a national sensation
immediately following its discovery and Beauchamp’s capture days later. Following Cook and Beauchamp’s failed joint
suicide attempt and the latter’s subsequent execution, ...

Charleston and Her Satirists consists of a single poem that
William Gilmore Simms drafted in response to a previously published work on
Charleston. Simms is not directly
identified as the author, but is referred to as “A City Bachelor.” The work was printed and published in two
sections by James S. Burges in Charleston, SC during 1848. The first section probably came to press
sometime around November 24, as that is when Simms sent a copy to J.H.
Hammond.[1] In the accompanying letter, Simms asked for
Hammond’s opinion of the work, noting that he himself had some ...

Charleston: The Palmetto City is a 1976 pamphlet republication of
an essay of the same name, originally published anonymously by Simms in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in June
1857.[1] The pamphlet edition of this essay is a
facsimile of the original Harper’s
piece. In the essay, a rare example of
the author’s travel writing, Simms focused on the architecture and geography of
his native city, descriptions that are complimented by detailed illustrations
of many of the most significant of Charleston’s buildings and memorials.[2] While a minor work, the essay ...

The City of the Silent is a poem of 500 lines written
by William Gilmore Simms in November 1850.
It was published by Walker & James in Charleston, SC that
same year. The cover lists a specific
date, November 19, which was the date that Simms delivered the poem at
the consecration of the new Magnolia Cemetery on the banks of the Cooper River, just north of Charleston. Although it was being
published in December of 1850, and despite the fact the cover notes the date of
publication as 1850, the work was released as a pamphlet in February of 1851.[1]
...

Building
out of his early experiences with writing in the psychological gothic mode in
such texts as Martin Faber (1833) and
Carl Werner (1838) and anticipating
his later work Castle Dismal (1844), William
Gilmore Simms published Confesssion; or, The Blind Heart in 1841. Coming at the front of what many consider to
be the author’s most productive period, this novel is the extended confession
of Edward Clifford who is orphaned at a young age and sent to be reared by his
aunt and uncle in Charleston. Rising
above his foster parents’ scorn, Clifford becomes a lawyer, a prominent
citizen, ...

Building
out of his early experiences with writing in the psychological gothic mode in
such texts as Martin Faber (1833) and
Carl Werner (1838) and anticipating
his later work Castle Dismal (1844), William
Gilmore Simms published Confesssion; or, The Blind Heart in 1841. Coming at the front of what many consider to
be the author’s most productive period, this novel is the extended confession
of Edward Clifford who is orphaned at a young age and sent to be reared by his
aunt and uncle in Charleston. Rising
above his foster parents’ scorn, Clifford becomes a lawyer, a prominent
citizen, ...

While generally considered to be
one of Simms’s weakest novels, Count
Julian; or, the Last Days of the Goth provides one of the most intriguing
textual histories of any of the author’s numerous works. Conceived as a sequel to Simms’s 1838 novel Pelayo, Count Julian continues Simms’s fictional treatment of Medieval
Spain, dramatizing the legendary betrayal of Julian, Count of Cueta, an act that
helped lead to the Muslim conquest of Iberia.
The work suffered from multiple delays in both composition and publication
and was not published until 1845 or 1846, more ...

Donna Florida is a narrative poem dealing with Ponce de Leon's exploits in what would later become Spanish Florida. Before full publication in 1843, portions of the poem appeared in The Boston Monthly
in 1841 and in the February-May 1843 issues of the Magnolia.[1] Simms more than likely paid for the
publication of this work in book form himself, with the volume being issued in
1843 by Burges and James in Charleston, SC.[2] Simms
described the work as not “published, but presented for private distribution.”[3] Indeed, according to a 29 June 1843 letter
that Simms sent ...

The
year 1827 was an eventful one for William Gilmore Simms. He completed reading law in the office of boyhood friend Charles Rivers Carroll and was appointed as a magistrate for Charleston; his
first child, Anna Augusta Singleton, was born, and he published two volumes of
collected poetry.[1] Early
Lays was the second
of those volumes and it was published by A.E. Miller of Charleston in the fall
of 1827.[2] In his dedication Simms noted, however, that
the material in Early
Lays was
“principally compiled from a surplus quantity of matter left from the
publication ...

Egeria: or, Voices of Thought and Counsel,
for The Woods and Wayside was published by E.H. Butler of Philadelphia in 1853
as a collection of Simms-authored laconics written over the course of many
years.[1] Simms began composing his proverbs as early
as April 1846 when he published selections of them in the Southern Patriot until April 1847 under the title, “Wayside
Laconics.” Soon afterward, Simms collected
these alongside many others and sought Rufus Griswold’s assistance in locating
a book publisher for the manuscript, which proved unsuccessful. Simms then ...

Eutaw,
published by Redfield on 19 April 1856, is the sequel to The Forayers,
and the penultimate romance in Simms's Revolutionary War saga[1]. It completes the story of the British withdrawal
from their outpost at Ninety-Six, including the battle of Eutaw Springs, the
last major engagement of the Carolina theatre, and its aftermath. Simms’s biographer John Caldwell Guilds notes
that it is necessary to understand Eutaw as a sequel, as it was “not a
new venture but the extension and completion of a scheme which kept expanding
in the author's fertile imagination.”[2] ...